“How can we make this go viral?” I cannot tell you how many leaders have asked me this exact question over my nearly 15 years doing social. Let’s set the record straight. “Going viral” has always been a bit of a misnomer, but the notion that you can make something go viral is kind of nuts. Most things that do go viral do so on their own because people drive the spread of the post. It is very rare that a company sets out to “make something go viral” and actually succeeds.

It’s almost here – April Fool’s Day is tomorrow, and thus marks the annual day of “you can’t believe what you read anywhere, especially on social media.” But let’s be honest: as a general rule, April Fool’s pranks from a company are almost always an average to terrible idea, and I would advise you to not do it. The bigger your brand, the bigger the risk.

By now you may have seen a post or three about the latest batch of Pew data on social media users. Here’s the big takeaway: If you still think you have one big single audience on social media, you are doing social media like it’s 2010.

If there was one thing I wish I could get folks in the business world to understand about social media, it’s this: when you’re doing social media on behalf of your company, it’s OK to have fun. But it cannot be just for fun.